Lucifer Uller
Lucifer Uller is a Dornish noble of House Uller and the current Lord of Hellholt. Biography Early Years Lucifer was born in 340 AC to Balthazar Uller and his lady wife Melora Swann. He was the first of four legitimate children, spread over twelve years. He was born slight and grew up a bookish child, generally more interested in the maester’s tower than the Hellholt’s sandy practice yard. Balthazar, never a warrior himself, was content to allow his son to become a scholarly sort as well, but Melora saw things differently. Her son had been born amidst Vorian Martell’s ill-advised treachery, and, unlike her husband, she believed that the Hellholt would not stand fast simply because it was surrounded by leagues upon leagues of desert. She pushed Lucifer towards books relating to military history, hoping to interest him in the history and practice of war. Melora’s efforts succeeded, and Lucifer soon became the household authority on wars and battles ranging from the Targaryen conquests to the War of the Five Kings. An interest in history led to an interest in arms, but his small stature and lack of strength made his time in the yard more painful than useful. Melora refused to despair, and, on her husband’s advice, hired a Braavosi exile named Mero Salmayr to come to the Hellholt and instruct Lucifer in the art of water dancing. He learned quickly, and, while held back by his size, could soon hold his own against the household squires. At age thirteen, all this changed. Lucifer shot up like a weed, gaining over a foot in height over the course of two years. He built muscle, working long hours in the training yard and finding that his water dancer’s finesse, combined with newfound strength, made him a force to be reckoned with. He also continued his studies, and even traveled to the Citadel when he made his coming-of-age progress around the south of Westeros. On this trip, he learned to navigate the dusty roads and dunes of his homeland, as well as the mountains and fields of the Reach and the Marches. His trip culminated in King’s Landing, where he witnessed Petyr II Baelish’s coronation. Marriage and Family Lucifer returned to Dorne and, at his father’s arrangement, married Wylla Martell of Sunspear. He was wary of the match at first, having met the dark-haired beauty only once, but the pair soon began to enjoy each other’s company. The next decade brought three children, a boy which he named Lucamore and twin daughters, Nymella and Sarella. Lucifer also took up the role of Lord Commander of the armies of the Hellholt, newly raised in response to an uptick in foreign raiders. Ironborn and an assortment of ships from the Free Cities had begun reaving up and down the southern coast, taking over holdfasts and sending contingents into the desert to attack the small mines in the hills. Lucifer and his bastard uncle Aegor Sand led a force of 1000 down the Brimstone, fighting reavers where he found them, and liberating towns and castles along the river and on the coast. A year of campaigning combined with the onset of winter was sufficient to scare the raiders off, and Lucifer returned home. An Unwanted Lordship Returning home was supposed to have been a triumph, but Lucifer and Aegor found the Hellholt in a sorry state. Balthazar had succumbed to the Uller madness, a disease of the mind which manifested once every few generations. He was able to sit up in bed and speak nonsense, but Melora was running the household for him. In one of his few lucid times, Balthazar and Lucifer sat down and talked for hours about the family, the castle, and the responsibilities of lordship. At the end of their conversation, Balthazar named his son the Lord of the Hellholt, giving up a title he’d held since Petyr 1 Baelish had ruled the Kingdoms. Balthazar died a year later, followed soon after by his wife. Lucifer took over the duties of ruling, learning from his mother while she still lived and from the maester, Olyvar, when she passed. Striving to keep peace above all else, he presided over a quiet desert and did what he could to bolster trade along the Brimstone. The Triarchy War When the Myrish invaded, Lucifer and Lucamore led a force of 1000 men out of the desert and into battle. Combining forces with the other Dornish lords, he made a fighting retreat to the Marches while Aegor Sand held fast at home. The Hellholt’s greatest defense was not walls or archers, but the leagues of desert surrounding it on all sides. And so, as Godsgrace and Lemonwood and even Sunspear fell to the Triarch’s forces, the Ullers’ remained mostly unperturbed. The sole army to challenge it, a full division of Unsullied sent to secure the Brimstone, found only empty villages and outposts as it sailed up the river. Lucifer, away fighting in the Dornish Marches, had ordered his Aegor Sand to defend the Uller home, but to send him word as soon as the Hellholt was threatened. And send word they did, at the first sign of invasion. Leaving Lucamore in charge of half his expeditionary force, Lucifer took the rest on a forced march through the mountains, stopping at Skyreach to resupply and make plans. With the Hellholt amply defended, Lucifer elected to deal with the Unsullied himself. In preparation, he’d sent a raven from Skyreach ordering riverboats down the Brimstone to smash the invaders’ own vessels. His plan, based on the assumption that Myrish Unsullied would be better suited to fair Essosi weather than Dorne’s dry heat and desert wind, was to wait while his blocking force drove them from the river and then hunt them down in the dunes. One thousand Unsullied came up the Brimstone. Seven left alive. Lucifer led a force of 500 men in pursuit of the slave soldiers, harassing them as they marched. Unsullied do not lose discipline, but no amount of training prepares a foreigner for the deserts of Dorne. The formation fell to pieces as soldiers died in the sand, exhausted from the heat and lack of water. Uller and his men sheltered in dune-shadows, relying on his knowledge of oases and minor villages to stay just behind the enemy. Twelve nights after the river battle, Lucifer set upon the Unsullied camp. His archers lit their arrows aflame and sent volleys into the soldiers’ sun-dried tents. A cavalry charge straight through the camp’s heart killed many of the startled troops, and footmen came in to massacre the rest. Lucifer allowed the Myrish commander and six Unsullied to live, to honor his mother’s Seven Gods. He sent them down the Brimstone as a warning, allowing them to live on condition that they spread word of their soldiers’ fate. With the threat to his home dealt with, Lucifer rejoined the war at large. 1000 men, including two hundred knights ahorse and a hundred archers, rode out from the Hellholt towards Sunspear. Lucifer asked that his wife Wylla come along, as she had grown up in the castle and knew its secret tunnels and passages better than any Myrish could hope to. He found Sunspear’s surrounding town near-deserted, as many Dornish had fled the area or died in the fighting when the Triarch’s men had taken the palace. The castle was shut tight, and, with most of the Triarch’s men off fighting in the Stormlands, a small garrison in the Shadow Town was all that stood between him and the palace gates. He smashed the foreigners against the outermost Winding Wall, but stopped short of assaulting the gate. Taking advice from his wife that Sunspear’s well-laid provisions would withstand a year of sieging, and not wanting to wait longer than necessary as his men wilted in the sun, Lucifer decided to infiltrate the castle. He made as if to lay siege, for appearances’ sake, but planned to break into Sunspear before he could become bogged-down and vulnerable. Following Willa’s hand-drawn map of the sewers, he and twenty knights crept into the wastewater gate on the first moonless night of their siege. The gate was guarded by a group of Unsullied, whom the Dornishmen distracted with a false attack on the nearby Sandship. Once inside, Lucifer and his twenty snuck as close to the gatehouse as they could, pressing forward slowly and in shadow to avoid alerting the garrison. As they moved, the Uller forces outside the palace moved in under cover of darkness, using the Shadow City and the distraction of the attack on the Sandship to get right up against the Winding Walls. Then, just as the Eastern horizon turned purple, Lucifer and his men attacked the gatehouse. They surprised the guards, forcing them to retreat to the exposed walls, where archers on the just-taken Sandship could target them. Once the gates were open, Uller footmen stormed inside and fought their way through the Winding Walls to the palace itself, killing as they went. By the time the sun had risen fully, Lucifer and his picked men had taken the Tower of the Sun, and by day’s end had massacred the Myrish invaders. The commanders’ heads went on spikes, and the rest of the garrison was thrown in the cells. Lucifer took a wound to the left arm from an Unsullied spear, and from then on the limb gave him trouble when he exerted it. Events Post-War Breaking the Myrish hold on Sunspear gave Uller a reputation as a beleaguer of castles, a ruthless commander of men who did not flinch from leading assaults and charges himself. However, he remained in Westeros during the Siege of Myr, recovering first from his wound and then from his long absence from home. The Hellholt has weathered the war untouched, but the Unsullied raids up the Brimstone and the dearth of trade in the Myrish invasion’s wake meant that many of its supplies and coin were needed to begin recovery efforts in the region. These efforts took up most of his time for years after the war, and continue to do so. He also accepted Lucifer Martell’s request that he become Justiciar of Sunspear, an office in which he still serves. Timeline * 340 AC: Born in the Hellholt * 347 AC: Begins to learn water dancing under Mero Salmayr’s tutelage * 357-358 AC: Makes a progress through Westeros, visits Oldtown and King’s Landing and sees Petyr II’s coronation * 358 AC: Marries Wylla Martell * 360 AC: Lucamore is born * 365 AC: Twins Nymella and Sarella are born * 367-368 AC: Goes campaigning against reavers on the southern coast * 368 AC: Becomes Lord of Hellholt * 369 AC: Balthazar dies * 370 AC: Melora dies * 381-382 AC: Fights in the Dornish-Triarchy War, liberates Sunspear * 384 AC: Accepts appointment as Justice of Sunspear Category:House Uller Category:Dornish